CREDIT: Oscilloscope Laboratories/Screenshot

OBEX

Starring: Albert Birney, Callie Hernandez, Frank Mosley

Director: Albert Birney

Running Time: 90 Minutes

Rating: Unrated

Release Date: January 9, 2026 (Theaters)

CREDIT: GKIDS/Screenshot

All You Need is Kill

Starring: Ai Mikami, Natsuki Hanae

Director: Kenichiro Akimoto

Running Time: 82 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: January 16, 2026 (Theaters)

CREDIT: Screenshot

A Useful Ghost

Starring: Davika Hoorne, Witsarut Himmarat, Apasiri Nitibhon, Wanlop Rungkumjad, Wanlop Rungkumjad, Wisarut Homhuan

Director: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke

Running Time: 130 Minutes

Rating: Unrated

Release Date: January 16, 2026 (Theaters)

CREDIT: 1-2 Special/Screenshot

A Poet

Starring: Ubeimar Rios, Rebeca Andrade, Guillermo Cardona, Allison Correa, Margarita Soto, Humberto Restrepo

Director: Simón Mesa Soto

Running Time: 124 Minutes

Rating: Unrated

Release Date: January 30, 2026 (Theaters)

CREDIT: NEON/Screenshot

Arco

Starring (English Dub Cast): Juliano Krue Valdi, Romy Fay, Mark Ruffalo, Natalie Portman, Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg, Flea, Roeg Sutherland, America Ferrera

Director: Ugo Bienvenu

Running Time: 89 Minutes

Rating: PG

Release Date:

In this Movie Review Roundup, I shall be discussing early 2026 releases that I hadn’t heard much about in advance. They all fit in the category of Oddball Surprises, and I’m definitely pleased I had a chance to see them on the big screen.

OBEX is about this agoraphobic dude named Conor (Albert Birney, also the director and co-writer), whose days of making computer key-based portraiture are broken up when he starts playing the titular computer game, which promises to fully immerse its players. It’s like a floppy disk-era Videodrome crossed with the breezy spirit of The Legend of Zelda.

All You Need is Kill does an anime adaptation of the same source material as Edge of Tomorrow, complete with a J-pop theme song playing during the end credits. It’s a little more woo-woo than pow-pow, but it’s always nice to do the time loop again.

Heading over to Thailand, we encounter A Useful Ghost. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s about this young widower named March (Witsarut Himmarat), whose dead wife’s (Davika Hoorne) spirit returns in a vacuum cleaner. It starts off laugh-out-loud droll before pivoting into bleaker social satire. If it had been me making this flick, I would’ve elected to maintain that initial tone throughout, though I nevertheless appreciated that it had plenty more worthwhile on its agenda.

Then we switch hemispheres yet again with the Colombia-set A Poet, which is set in a not-so-alternate reality in which intellectuals seem to believe that pursuing poetry should be enough to support a sustainable lifestyle. Primarily, there’s Oscar (Ubeimar Rios), who takes a teaching job and attempts to transfer his literary ambitions onto one of his students (Rebeca Andrade). It’s one of those movies where everybody gets what’s coming to them, with a decent number of laughs along the way.

And finally I’ll wrap it up with the magical, marvelous Arco, a French animated production about a boy from the future who falls from the sky. I saw the English dub, which means I was treated to the shenanigans of a trio of kooky brothers voiced by Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg, and Flea. I sure hope that their French counterparts were just as sidesplitting! Anyway, if you need your sense of wonder to be restored, Arco delivers just what the Movie Doctor ordered.

Grades:
OBEX: I Raise My Sword!
All You Need is Kill: 2 out of 3 Darols
A Useful Ghost: Thar She Blows!
A Poet: 7 Stanzas out of 10 Journals
Arco: 14 Diamonds out of 15 Rainbows